


death is a kindness

by convenience



Series: The Whole Being Dead Thing [1]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, deceased!alfie, either way no blowjobs, peakyemergencyresponsefic, s5e1 black friday, tommy thinks hes a hallucination but actually hes a ghost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 17:48:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20393692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/convenience/pseuds/convenience
Summary: Tommy rides out to the middle of the nowhere to seek out his deceased wife, and finds a deceased Wandering Jew.





	death is a kindness

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first of many fics for this season of peaky! I'm doing a oneshot per episode, possibly more! check peakyemergencyresponsefic.tumblr.com for others!

“Well, fuck me! Isn’t it the world’s littlest MP!”

“If I wanted to talk to you, Alfie, I would. I come out into the middle of fucking nowhere, on a fucking horse, with a fuckton of opiates, to talk to my wife. Not to you.”

Tommy almost didn’t want to look up.  
But, of course. The only person to hang Tommy would be himself.  
He looked up, and there he was. Lo and fucking behold, Alfie Solomons was crouched in front of the fire, teasing it with his fingers. Tommy could almost smell his singed arm hairs.

“One of the best things about being dead, Tommy, is that I get to watch. I get to watch as you fuck up everything, I get to watch as you let Cyril curl up with your lad, only for them both to get in bed with you and your Mrs and push you apart. I get to watch, and I can’t do anything about it.” He hummed, now deciding to sit in the fire, the flames licking up his seemingly impenetrable suit. It made him look like Midas, Tommy decided, everything around him golden and right.

“And yet you find a way to torment me either way.” Tommy chuckled, offering him a hand out of the fire and quickly taking it back. The image of Alfie, and his voice, had distracted him so powerfully that he forgot that the fire was more than a memory. 

Laughter broke the scene, deep and rich. It felt like molasses as it coated what Tommy had left of anything other than admiration for Aflie. The want to take him for a walk in the park. The want to talk to him under darkening lights that he’d been masking as grief for the longest time. He had felt grief, and he had definitely felt it for Alfie. Of course, there was always something more. He was something more.

“Pity you didn’t figure it out before the cancer did, really, pet.” Alfie told him, sobering as he watched Tommy’s gears turn, both of them ignoring the two inch long burn on each finger of his right hand - sans his thumb, which was too short to be licked by the flame. “Then again, maybe it’s better that you didn’t. You’re going to use that man’s boyfriend against him, aren’t you? Going to kick him right in the nads, because you’re Tommy Shelby, and he might say something you don’t like. Best to just blackmail him over loving other men, right?”

Tommy couldn’t bear to look at him. Couldn’t bear to realise that yes, that was what he was doing - that it was wrong, and that had he been brave enough to love openly after grace, may have it been him. 

“And there’s no point in trying to convince yourself that what you’re doing is right, is there, treacle? You know very well that it’s not, and you’re going to do it anyway, just to save your own skin only marginally. He poses no real threat to you, and if I know you well enough, you’re going to have him shot. That will be lovely for his boyfriend to find out, only to be incapable of coming to the funeral service without outing himself.” 

Tommy could hear every breath, the very beating of Alfie’s heart as he bore it to him on bended knee, still sitting in the fire. “I have come too far, Alfie, to have some journalist ruin it. Why should I? Because he’s a poof? He’s no different to the rest of them that I have killed. If I cared about their home lives, or their boyfriends, or who they like to fuck, then I would be in the same ditch as Freddie.”

“Death, poppet, is a wonderful thing. A kindness.” He told him, getting out of the fire and straightening his suit jacket out only to sit with Tommy on the ground. “When you’re dead, no-one bothers you. You’ve got forever and a day to watch your loved ones die, or maybe you’ve seen that happen and find new ones to care about in death. I have.” 

“When you’re dead, sweetheart, there are no Peaky Blinders. There are no races, no bookmakers, no MPs, no PMs, no streets, no deities. If there is, they have yet to show themselves to me.” 

Alfie’s habit of talking so frequently had only ever annoyed him when they were on the same plane, but now it soothes him. Now there are no games to be played, only things to be said and families to be watched.

“You haven’t told me to shut up yet, poppet.” 

“I’m scared of what will happen when you do. The other voices will start talking.” Tommy admitted quietly, and revelled in the feeling of a warm arm around his shoulders, rough fingers grazing his arm. He can feel the rings through his shirt, and realises he wants to feel them on his skin.

Alfie leant in, and suddenly Tommy could smell whiskey that was somehow always sweeter than his, because that’s how the Americans liked it. He could smell fresh bread from the actual bakery front they had. He could smell his fresh cotton shirt. Could smell the herbal aftershave that had always been one of the nicer things about Solomons.

“What have the voices got to say? I’ve knocked your dad down a few, so he shouldn’t bother you or your little boy any longer. Prick.” Alfie asked softly, not ready to admit that he quickly die for Charlie and Ruby. The Romani blood ran through them both, but in Charlie it ran fiercely. Sometimes he would sit next to Charlie’s bed, in the armchair, and make sure that nothing disturbed him. He didn’t use to, but one night he saw Tommy’s father whispering fierce things into his ear and quickly took up post as godfather.

“You what?”

“Your lad. He can see me. He’s alright, you know. Swears like nothing.” Alfie chuckled, looking over at Tommy. “If he can see me, he can see the rest of them. Someone on my side best look after you lot, ain’t I? Let’s face it, you aren’t going to look after each other.”  
Tommy wondered if he’d ever stop being amazed by Alfie Solomons.

“You’ve been watching over Charlie?”

“Yeah. I like it when he shouts at you, it is hilarious.” Alfie’s grin was indescribable, something magical and enigmatic. He didn’t bother disclaiming that he would talk to the lad about his difficult father, about how much he actually cared about him even though he had a short temper and tended to fuck up a lot.

Charlie Shelby quite liked talking to the kind man who would make him laugh and tell him to go back inside so that his dad didn’t worry. Even if he knew he was dead. 

“Your kids want you home more, you know. If you can be bothered to make them, you can be bothered to parent them. Better fulfil the full act of being straight, eh?”

Then he was gone. 

There was nothing but Tommy, the fire, and his blistering hand. Nothing but Tommy, feeling somewhat content with the fact that someone was looking after Charlie in a way that he couldn’t. Someone he trusted. Someone he could have loved in another life, in another body. One where they weren’t able to silence people by knowing their sexuality. One where he didn’t.


End file.
